


Love in the time of cholera

by starrystarrytrouble



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Boss/Employee Relationship, Canon Compliant, F/M, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Hospitals, Love, Making Out, Romance, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:00:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrystarrytrouble/pseuds/starrystarrytrouble
Summary: What happened at Edenbrook in the 2 months between OH and OH2?
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	1. The Departure

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a shout to my all time favourite novel, and ultimate slow burn, by Marquez (and doesn't belong to me).

The mid-morning sun bounced off the Boston skyline and through the halls of Edenbrook. Four days since the ethics hearing and three days into being reinstated Dr Eve Valentine was walking down the corridor with Elijah and Jackie, having finished her second night shift of the week, the light from the window warming her back as she watched Elijah’s impression of Bryce when he accidentally walked in on Jackie in the shower earlier.

“I’m telling you, Eve, you should’ve been there. He just stood there staring, didn’t even shut the door. Clearly liked what he saw.” Elijah winked at Eve and she laughed brightly.

“Yeah, yeah, pipe down Greene, he’s got more chance becoming Director of Diagnostics than getting any from me.” Jackie chimed.

“I think you’re protesting too much, Jackie” Eve giggled with Elijah.

Jackie swatted her hard and smirked. “Shut up, Valentine.”

“Ow!”

“Dr Valentine, good morning” a voice called from behind them.

“I wondered if I might have a word before you leave?” Naveen was standing at the end of the corridor, his usual warmth replaced by a polite smile she wasn’t used to.

“Of course, Dr Banerji.” Elijah and Jackie gave her the someone’s-in-trouble look, as she slipped back and headed towards his office and closed the door behind her. He gestured towards a chair and looked at her, fresh lines on his still recovering face.

“I have some news I thought you might like to know.

"There’s been a cholera outbreak in the Amazon, you might be aware of it already, it’s been progressing all too rapidly. It’s being classed as an epidemic by the WHO and they need as much help as they can get. Dr Ramsey has volunteered to go out there to help the fight. He requested a sabbatical and it’s all arranged.”

Eve looked ahead blankly and Naveen continued, his voice dropping gently at her expression.

“It’s very short notice but he leaves today. He asked me to tell everyone tomorrow but under the circumstances, given how,” he paused lightly, “closely you’ve been working together I thought you would like to know before the others find out.”

Eve nodded. Her mind raced through the information. Amazon. Epidemic. WHO. Ethan.

Ethan.

“His flight leaves this evening, Dr Valentine. If you want to see him for any reason,” Naveen shuffled some papers against the desk nonchalantly, “I am sure he can be found at his apartment.”

Eve thanked him and left. It still hadn’t quite sunk in but she could feel the enormity of the news thundering around her. Ten minutes ago she was thinking about meeting her roommates for breakfast and now she was wrestling with a revelation that threatened to destabilise her completely.

He was actually leaving. After everything, he was leaving and he wasn’t going to say goodbye. What they had, whatever they had, wasn’t worth that little courtesy.

The worst part was none of it made sense. After she’d been named as the winning intern and placed onto the Diagnostics team, he’d told her they’d make it work. What that entailed, she wasn’t entirely sure and maybe he didn’t know either but making it work sure wasn’t this. And in the few days they’d both been back, they’d worked side by side as normal and he’d even invited her to the coffee shop on her break as he sometimes did. Was he planning this the whole time?

She thought back to Dr Banerji’s words.

If you want to see him for any reason.

Even Naveen thought he was being a jerk. Why else would he make sure she found out before he left.

She walked into the locker room and slammed her locker open, the metal hitting the wall and denting the corner. She felt lost in a way she hadn’t since before her ethics hearing. And even then, she’d known she was in the right and that gave her courage, made her sure things would be alright. This was a different sort of helplessness.

“Jeez, Eve, you’re supposed to save lives, not kill my hearing.” Jackie was standing by the benches with Elijah, waiting for her.

They were the ones who constantly had her back, who helped her trick Declan Nash, who supported her through the ethics hearing and who’d kicked Landry to the curb when they heard what he did. That’s what friends did. They didn’t give up. And they sure as hell didn’t run away.

“What did Banerji say to you, anyway?” Jackie asked.

“Nothing. Just some stuff about the Diagnostics team and my fellowship.”

She closed the locker gently.

“Raincheck on breakfast, though? There’s somewhere I have to be.”

#

The knock on the door was loud, purposeful and demanding and instinctively, even though he knew rationally it couldn’t be possible, Ethan Ramsey knew exactly who was on the other side.

It didn’t stop his eyes widening and a small gasp escaping him when he opened it. Eve pushed past him, shutting the door hard and moved to stand apart from him by the window.

He didn’t know what he’d expected. It was foolish of him to think he would get away with the plan, to believe she’d give up so easily. She could be as unpredictable as she was unassuming, as wild as she was kind and she was one of the few people he knew who had a temper to match his, if only with more control and poise. He needed to calm himself, stick to his logic in the face of whatever she was about to say and remember why he was doing this. For her. Always for her.

“Naveen told you.”

His tone was declarative but she caught the hint of something else. The defeat. She carried on staring out onto the bay. The glitter of the water meeting the tip of the horizon. The finest view in Boston, made downright spectacular for her remembering the last time she was here.

“This morning.” she turned to him, “Why didn’t you tell me.”

He sighed. Control what you can control.

“You are about to join my team,” he put on his well rehearsed authoritative voice, a second skin that felt like silk, “We need a fresh start. The WHO called me a few days ago. I thought this would be best.”

“For you or me?”

“Both.”

Neither missed a beat.

“Right.” she looked back to the window.

In the cab over she was sure she’d be angry. She’d shout at him and get it out of her system. Did he really think she was so dumb that she didn’t understand why he wanted to try to help and save lives. That she’d try to stop him. Or did sleeping with her mean so little that he didn’t give her a second thought. Even the second option didn’t seem so bad in the face of reality. If it had been just sex, a fling, then it wouldn’t be so bad but she knew that it had reached beyond that for both of them, even before any untraceable lines had been crossed.

Now she was here, she wasn’t angry but surprised, utterly baffled, to find herself relieved. He hadn’t left yet, he was right there. The same silhouette pierced by blue eyes. Whatever was coming, in this moment, everything felt redeemable.

“Eve…”

He walked over behind her and gently turned her to him. Her green eyes looked up at him, across their height difference, and the resolve he’d felt dying since the second he’d heard the banging at the door, disappeared almost completely the second she looked down to his lips.

He wasn’t sure who moved first. Their lips crashed onto each other and he parted her mouth gently with his tongue. He pushed her against the window and kissed her hard biting her lower lip gently before moving down her neck as she turned her head away, his hands tight around her waist, his body locking her in place.

She said his name with a languid sigh and her moan jolted him back to himself. He stepped back, still holding her tight.

“Ethan? What are you…” She didn’t finish the sentence.

One look back up at him and she could already see that familiar pained look. Like in Miami or at the opera, like all the other times they’d ever got close to forgetting his rules for just a moment.

Except this time she felt a new urgency. Soon he’d be gone and a year of his pathetic attempts to free himself from her were about to be realised. This was her last chance and she couldn’t let it end like it usually did. With his annoying, boring rules.

“You’re not my boss yet. You’re on sabbatical. You don’t even work there right now.”

“No, but…”

Before he could protest she pushed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his neck, her hands lost in his hair as she kissed him again hard. He stiffened and then relaxed into her but she pulled back and moved to his ear. 

“Shut up then.”

She lifted her leg around him and almost on queue, muscle memory from the weekend before, he lifted her up as she wrapped her legs around him, her mouth fixed on his, and carried her into the bedroom.

#

The late afternoon lit up the back bay in purple and Eve looked out over the balcony as she sat on the edge of the bed doing up the buttons on her blue blouse. 

“What time is your flight?” she asked, her voice smaller than she’d intended.

“8pm.” Ethan looked at his watch and waited for her to come into the front room.

She stepped over to the door and smiled at him tightly. She wasn’t into long goodbyes and she was feeling more foolish by the second.

“Well take care of yourself. Edenbrook’s gonna need Ethan Ramsey back.”

She turned to open the door and felt him move close behind her.

“Rookie, wait.”

He kissed her again, not like before, but with a new intensity, like he was trying to make sure he could commit her to memory.

Emotions were treacherous and she was trying hard not to be betrayed. She needed to get out without saying anything she could regret, all the words and thoughts that had been drifting though her mind the last few months, ever since Naveen has got ill and she’d fallen headfirst into the complicated world of Ethan Ramsey.

“Promise you’ll stay in touch?” she said in barely a whisper.

He looked at her sadly and enveloped her, kissing her again, a soft brush on the lips, and she gave him a last pained smile, turned the handle and walked out of the building, onto the street as if the last hours had all been just a wonderful, terrible dream.


	2. Sharks and dolphins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan’s left and there’s a new attending on the block. Told from Sienna's perspective.

Dr Sienna Trinh, doctor extraordinaire, queen of baking, and currently irritatingly known as 'Mrs Danny' amongst the nurses, was a dolphin. And in a profession full of sharks, she knew part of maintaining her small but treasured school of fellow dolphins meant you rescue each other at the first sign of trouble.

And boy was Eve always in trouble.

If she wasn't stealing unlicensed drugs from big pharma reps for beloved patients, she was golfing at a country club to try to avoid losing her medical licence. And then there was Dr Ramsey.

If you blinked, you'd miss it. At least on his part. The way his eyes darkened when he saw Eve in Donahue's out of hours, or more recently the way he'd put his hand on her arm in the corridor when they were talking. And then he'd be chewing her out or rolling his eyes at her and you'd think you imagined it.

Eve was a different ball game. The entire hospital could see she was friendly with him, perhaps too eager to talk back to him or get herself noticed. Maybe she had a crush on him but she wouldn't be the first intern to be hanging around the great Ethan Ramsey to give her career a boost. It was nothing.

Except Sienna saw everything. She knew Eve and she was even beginning to know Dr Ramsey.

And she knew you don't let a dolphin go down.

When Dr Banerji had gathered the interns and residents for a briefing on staffing, Sienna was sure there would be job cuts. But when he instead announced that Dr Ramsey had bravely decided to join the WHO in fighting the cholera epidemic in Brazil, she'd turned straight to Eve and mouthed 'DID YOU KNOW' at her, to which she'd just nodded and at that moment Sienna realised why Eve had hidden in her room and barely said a word in the last day.

But when Dr Banerji then went on to explain that he'd found an attending to cover, a reputable young doctor on loan from Mass Kenmore, and that Ramsey wouldn't just be back in a week or two, Sienna knew Eve wasn't the only one. They were all in trouble.

Dr Richard Burke smiled at the buzzing residents as Naveen introduced him to them but the smile didn't reach his eyes. He was tall, probably not much older than Ethan, but his manner was completely unfamiliar. His blonde hair was stylishly messed up and he wore a crisp white shirt and sharp brown shoes. Ramsey Junior the nurses giggled. But there was something different about him, something darker. He was a shark. The worst kind.

At lunchtime Sienna dipped into the cafeteria. Eve was in a corner, rifling through a textbook and pushing a tossed salad around in its container. The same blank expression she'd had on all morning told Sienna she wasn't reading a word of the book.

"Hey you."

Eve looked up and mustered a smile as Sienna sat down.

"Are you okay? You know, after Dr Banerji's announcement?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've got a patient with unexplained cramps and I worked the graveyard shift twice this week so I'm kinda struggling to get through this." she tapped the book.

"Right. Cos Elijah said you disappeared after your shift yesterday? He and Jackie went to Sam's for breakfast with Bryce and you said you had to go somewhere. And after the whole Dr Ramsey thing," she lowered her voice into a comforting whisper, "I'm guessing it's not a coincidence?"

Eve nodded and closed the textbook.

"Did you go to…see him?"

Sienna got up and hugged Eve after she told her everything that happened.

"Hey, he's coming back. He's a dolphin too! You know, under that shark costume. You'll figure it out."

"You weren't there Si, it felt so final. Like he was saying goodbye."

"He might think that now but we know he's clueless when it comes to you. He was going to leave without telling you and then you show up and somehow you end up sleeping together. He's literally going to a rainforest to try to forget you."

Eve laughed faintly, "I don't think he's going for me, he's pretty big on the whole medicine thing too."

"Whatever. He wants you to focus on your career and he's willing to give you up so you can do that. He cares about you a lot to try to stay away from you. And that's also why he won't be able to keep away. Trust me."

#

The next few weeks were a blur for all the interns. The closer they got to the end of the intern year the more challenging it felt and the pressure was unbelievable.

On a particularly fraught Wednesday when a coach load of tourists had arrived with severe unexplained stomach pain and the thermometer hit over 35 degrees Sienna found herself in a supply closet, sobbing into a surprised but gentle Bryce's shoulder.

But that was nothing compared to Eve.

They were taking it in turns to check on her. To the point that they almost had a rota system. Jackie and Aurora were unexpectedly brilliant at casually making conversation with her under the radar to ascertain where she'd been when they didn't see her for a few days and Elijah was uniquely placed to ply her with fries and popcorn when she watched movies with him on rare days off with her textbooks propped up on her knees.

She was practically living at the hospital. 20 hours shifts rolled off her like water and she came home to nap, shower and change her clothes. On days off she studied in the kitchen with the smell of hazelnut coffee wafting through the apartment all day. On the surface, she claimed to her friends that she was studying hard so she was ready for her spot on the Diagnostic Team and they bought it.

Dr Richard Burke, ruthless and talented, but the current bane of all the interns' life, like his predecessor, also saw Eve as an exception. Except to him, she was an unfortunate exception, an anomaly who tried to bend the rules and got away with it for too long. He was determined that not only would she not do it on his watch but that if she even tried, he'd catch her out. 

So watch her he did. Acutely and intensely with a rigour even Ethan would have admired. He checked her charts hourly. He spot checked her on her diagnoses and lingered on the edges of patients' rooms while she treated them. He was everywhere, a constant buzz that whirred around while Eve tried to work and she had no way of making him go away.

The roommates all noticed. The nurses, equally annoyed to be on the receiving end of 'Ramsey lite', were sympathetic to Eve and tried to make her life easier. Even the surgeons via Bryce heard of the interim attending's reign of terror.

It made perfect sense to everyone. The ideal cover story. Dr Valentine was being worked to the bone. She was tired and achey and that was making her thinner. She was caving under the pressure of being number one intern. She needed to be better.

Everyone but Sienna.

Four weeks after Dr Ramsey left, she walked into the living room at 3am after a late shift where she'd stayed to see her sepsis patient pull through a tricky appendectomy, and found Eve spread on the sofa with her usual mass of textbooks and the TV on. The same blank expression she'd seen for the last 28 days in Eve's green eyes vanished in a heartbeat and she was bright and alive, and Eve again, not just Dr Valentine, when the news anchor cut to a shot of a hospital in the Amazon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thank you for reading! 
> 
> The next and final part features Bryce, blind dates and a surprise guest appearance from our favorite doctor.


	3. The Attending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve overhears a video call and Bryce has got a blind date in mind for her.

Edenbrook cafeteria food was notoriously iffy. Some days the fries were the perfect balance of crunchy and fluffy and other days the salmon was nearly grey and the texture of cotton balls. It was unfortunate because the cafeteria table at the back where an attending used to sit was becoming Eve's regular hangout each evening as she ploughed through patients and textbooks. Often it was the only way her friends got to see her and tonight Bryce was her dinner date.

It had been nearly 6 weeks since her ethics hearing and although she wasn't, probably ever, going to tell him who, Eve had very sketchily said enough that he knew she was engaged in some painful, on/off fling and that said man had very dramatically flicked the off button on her around about the time she got out of her suspension. He was sure the guy was a total asshole. She was one of his best friends and it would've been clear to even the lamest jerk that she wasn't the kind of girl you mess around.

"You're killing me, Eve. Come out tonight. I've literally lost the best wingman I've ever had."

"You know it, Lahela. And that's wingwoman to you. I've told you though, I can't, I gotta study." Eve forked a piece of cucumber.

"Burke still being a jerk off?"

She gave him a look that screamed help me.

"He's the worst. You were there when he made Sienna cry the other day. I mean c'mon, I figured he's hard on me because of Mrs Martinez, but Si's totally by the book on patient care."

"Want me to sort him out for you?" he cracked his knuckles and winked at her.

"What are you gonna do, flirt with him to death?" They both laughed.

"Speaking of, I talked to Chase again, and he's free Friday night. He's down with taking you to that Italian in North Point."

"Bry." she put her fork down and looked away from him. "I don't know."

Bryce took her hand gently. "Look, I get that you're not over that guy, but you need to start somewhere.

"Chase is probably not your type. He's not some world leading diagnostician or a…"

"What?" she jerked back to look at him.

"Oh c'mon, you totally had a crush on Ramsey when we started." he grinned, "you and every other intern who's read his book."

She bit her lip and smiled but didn't say anything.

"And I'm sure you'll feel better when he's back and Burke's out the picture. But you still gotta get over the guy you were seeing. Or don't. But either way, you need to get out there.

"Chase is fun, we had so many great nights when we were at Stamford, he's one of my ride or dies. Man is a legend at Mass Kenmore, he's the top surgical resident. Plus he's loaded so." Bryce winked again.

She shook her head in defeat. "Alright, fine. Whatever. One date. But he better not suck."

Bryce clutched his chest and feigned hurt. "You're doubting my taste?"

They both laughed.

#

If was just after 10pm and the hospital was calm. This was Eve's favourite time, when the nurses and doctors doing their rounds made small talk with her and stifled yawns as Edenbrook settled into the swing of the night shift.

The attendings were usually all gone by now save the ones on duty and she'd walk past Ethan's office and see the lamplight glow from inside and know that he was either napping on the couch or working late. He never minded her interruptions when she stayed late. Even in the last week before he left there had been a night when she had fallen asleep on his office couch and woken to see him still working at his desk.

And now that she was always here at night, the hospital felt more familiar than her room, and she liked the absence of expectation. She could study, check on her patients and grab coffee with whichever of her roomates were working double shifts. No-one expected her to be high energy at 3am.

She walked up to a familiar corridor on her way to the staff lounge. She didn't know why she still did it, it was stupid and desperate. The way hospital gossip worked, she would know way in advance if he was coming back. There was something comforting in walking past, holding her breath in case, just in case he had given everyone the slip and returned unnoticed. The room was dark these days, the lights turned off and the door locked, but it was enough to know it wouldn't always be.

She shuffled around the corner, lost in a chart and her stomach plunged with the same gravity of a 50 storey drop as she saw the office bright and the door ajar. She moved closer and closer, stepping gently on the polished floor to avoid being heard. The corridor was deserted and she stood at the door and heard a familiar voice.

"You recognise the room? Ha, I thought you'd like to see that. I hoped it might entice you back." he chuckled.

Eve glanced through the crack to see Naveen Banerji sitting on the couch, facing away from the door with a laptop perched on his knees that he was talking into.

"So how are things are out in Brazil? The conditions look atrocious, I've been trying to follow closely." he said to the screen.

She heard a familiar dry laugh through the tiny speakers and whatever was left of her insides plummeted to the ground.

"You could say that. It's...appalling, Naveen. We're doing our best for the patients but it's not good enough. I feel utterly powerless. The medicine, the science. All of it feels irrelevant."

A nurse passed and Eve stepped back and stared back at her chart, missing Naveen's reply as she tried to look busy.

"How are things back at Edenbrook anyway?" she heard Ethan ask as she refocused.

"Inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. But everyone is doing well. Miss Wood is the only patient of yours still here. She's struggling with her chemo but going strong. The interns are holding their own. Burke is tough on them, very tough, I think they actually want you back" Naveen chuckled.

"I doubt that very much."

"Perhaps it's time you thought about coming back."

"No. Absolutely not. Not yet. I haven't got everything out of my system yet."

"Every- _thing_ or every- _one_?" Naveen's voice was gentle but pointed.

They were both silent before Ethan relented.

"How is she?"

"Still a tough cookie. I hear she's working too hard, she's always at the hospital pushing herself. Like someone else we know. She'll make a great addition to your team when you come back. But Dr Burke is being especially hard on her. I presume this is because he heard about the ethics hearing and wishes to distance himself."

"Remind me to punch him when I get back."

Eve smiled in spite of herself.

"You know Ethan, having a personal life isn't going to make her any less of a doctor. It won't do you any harm either."

"I have to go, Naveen."

"Keep it in mind. And take care of yourself."

Eve moved back downstairs quietly. When she got home, she sank into bed and she slept for the first time in weeks.

#

Bryce was standing by the nurses station when he saw Eve a few days later. She looked different somehow, her dark bangs were gone, her hair was curled and pinned to one side and she was giggling with Sienna. Really giggling.

"Hey." they smiled as he walked over, "if it isn't Edenbrook's hottest interns. Heard about your big moment today E."

Sienna punched Bryce lightly. "Bryce! Don't scare her!"

"Seriously? You heard about that?" Eve didn't look bothered.

"You giving Burke a dressing down? Everyone's heard about that. What was it you said at the end." he tried to do an impression of Eve, "'Get off my back and let me do my job so you can do yours'. Ladies and gents, Dr Eve Valentine is back in the building."

They all laughed. "What got into you? You totally did the right thing, but I could never say anything to him. He scares me so much" Sienna shivered.

"He had it coming. And I guess I felt...like someone had my back."

"We've always got your back. Right Si?" Bryce put his arm around Eve and walked her upstairs, "And you know who else will love your back? CHASE. He's really loyal. And great. Did I mention great?"

"Bryce" Eve laughed again, "About that."

Bryce mimicked getting shot in the chest.

"I don't think it's a good idea. Can you cancel?"

"What about the Italian place, you wanted to go there for aaaages."

"I'll go another time. You can take me. I don't think I'm ready for a blind date."

Bryce nodded. "I get it. Should I postpone? Tell him you're busy with work?"

Eve pouted and patted his arm "I don't think Chase and Eve is ever going to be a thing."

"Serious? No 'Cheve'?"

Eve shook her head.

"Alright. I'll let him down gently. But you know you're going to have to get over your guy at some point."

Bryce looked down at her. She looked bold and excited, so determined like the Eve he'd known for nearly a year that it was easy to forget how exhausted she'd been the last few weeks. But here she was. Almost overnight, transformed.

"Actually, I don't plan to get _over_ him." she said, with a smirk playing on her lips.

Bryce shook his head and smiled with respect.

Whoever the mystery lover was, that guy was going to be in serious trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the lovely anon on Tumblr who requested I post the final chapter and thanks everyone who read the series. 
> 
> \- Ruby x  
> @starrystarrytrouble

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Tumblr: @starrystarrytrouble


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